


What Wouldn't Jessica Do?

by Zhangers



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, Jessica Kilgrave Hero Team, Sorry Not Sorry, Triggers for Kilgrave being Kilgrave, What Would Jessica Do?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 01:18:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhangers/pseuds/Zhangers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The scales were set, corrupt as the balance was. On the other side of the tipping point were dozens, maybe hundreds, just waiting for the drop. There was no way of knowing what the reckoning would be, how many innocent, pointless deaths he would orchestrate. And all his for her pound of flesh. </p><p>Knowing this, what wouldn’t Jessica do? </p><p>AU fic where Jessica chooses to take Kilgrave down the straight and narrow. Or tries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What do you have to lose?

The food looks fast and smells… just smells, really.

He wrinkles his nose, but the poisonous disdain he was going for is not really there. It is hard to summon up the venom. She is back. He had been waiting for hours, watching the sun set, listening to the mewling of thingamy and whatsherface, looking for her shadow in every sad surburban caricature that passed by his window.

He thought that she was gone for good. He was sure that he had made a serious misstep, somewhere. Perhaps he had been too quick to make the suggestion. The day had been surprising, and he had not been as careful as he might have ben. She needed more time to warm up. Perhaps another gesture was required. It would have been all too easy. A little whisper here, a little whisper there. Another hostage situation would have been too obvious, but he could think of several other, equally delicious scenarios. The setting would not be a dingy little apartment. It would somewhere public and high stakes, where he could stage a proper show. A square at midday, full of innocent bystanders. And maybe he would let a few of these remember, let a few videos loose. No take-backsies, Jessica.

Instead, he had peaked a little too soon. The mistake was irritating.

But no matter. Here she is, back in his house against all odds, and there would be no need for unpleasantries. The domestics are alive and blinking, not that there is any point in having them, because, amazingly and for the first time in their history, Jessica is seeing to dinner.

She is throwing portions of the congealed, probably stone cold mess onto plates with a slopping sound and a truly respectable splash zone. She bends over the place settings, and he catches a flash of her white neck beneath the ebony hair. Her long, slender arms flex as she fills four plates in a motion that is too natural.

He imagines her as a child of fourteen, doling out portions of some early experimental cuisine to a grimacing little brother. At fourteen, he had already settled into a routine of home-surfing. He had preferred the rustic, choosing picture-perfect houses with brown hens in the yard and a roaring fire in the grate. Sometimes, he had even enjoyed the company of other children.

It is all very domestic. It is exactly what he wanted, but somehow he feels ill at ease.

She says she remembers what he likes. He wonders just how true that is. Images surface for just a moment, and he is so very tempted, but – no – he must be good.

He makes some remark about the servants eating with them, because he must say something.

Thingamy and Whatsherface sit down and seem delighted. After all, they must please the lady of the house, where her wishes did not contradict his own.

He takes his place and Jessica hers, and she begins their strange dinner without preamble, shovelling spoonfuls of mixed cuisine into her red mouth. The servants take their cue from her, and soon the sound of clinking cutlery fills the kitchen.

But he does not eat.

He lifts a forkful to his nose, and sniffs surreptitiously. Does his particular Kryptonite even have an odour?

This does not go unnoticed by Jessica.

“You can’t ingest it,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Here – “

She stabs her fork into his pile of mixed slop and eats to make the point.

“See?”

He saw.

He takes a bite from the exact same place.

“Not bad.”

He means it, too. It’s Szechuan something-that-could-be-maybe-chicken, and it tastes surprisingly fine. The fact that he has not eaten all day probably has a lot to do with it.

He goes slowly, and for a long time there is only the sound of clinking cutlery and quiet chewing.

“Why did you come back?” he asks, when the silence grew too much for his liking.

“Because you said you would kill these two if I didn’t.”

It is casual, familiar nettling, and it settles him.

“Fair point, I suppose. Though I was hoping that you had given my proposal a second thought.”

There is a long pause during which he watches her like a hawk out of the corner of his eye and she pretends not to notice.

“I did,” she said at last.

She puts her fork down and pushes her plate away, as if the admission had ruined her appetite.

“Dare I hope…?”

He says it casually, but he feels his heart beating fast in his chest. Oh what a step forward it would be.

“If I say yes – _if_ I say yes – what guarantee do I have that you’ll stay on the straight and narrow?”

“More than you have now, that’s for sure,” he says, not managing to keep the threat quite out of his voice.

Her dark brows are knitted tightly together as she works herself through this. He helps her.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I liked it,” he says, in a reassuring tone. “I do like it, a lot. I want it again. And again. And again. Well – you know me. Maybe I’ll even like it better than the other thing.”

“You’ll stop making people hurt themselves? You’ll stop ra-“

“I don’t guarantee anything,” he says quickly, to cover up the spiteful word that was beginning to form on her lips.  

“Then what’s the point? What do I have to gain if I go along with – “ her hands thrust wildly in front of her “ – this arrangement, whatever it is?”

“What do you have to lose?” he counters.

“My life.”

He wonders how it has escaped her notice that he has that already.

“You’ll have the best of everything, I’ll make sure of it. And you get to be the hero again. Isn’t that what you always wanted? Isn’t that the life that I supposedly took away from you?”

“I’ll lose my freedom.”

“Did I make you come back here?”

She shakes her head as if tossing off an irksome fly, and when she speaks again her voice is a little rough at the edges.

“Our agreement still stands. I still get to choose. You won’t make me.”

She doesn’t finish her sentence, but she doesn’t need to.

He holds his hands up, halfway between a surrender and a pledge.

“I still promise not to touch you, not until I have your full and enthusiastic consent.”

“Not happening, asshole.”

He lets it slide, and focusses on clearing his plate.

“Alright, fine,” she says, grinding the words out between her teeth as if they were bits of grit. “I’ll give you a trial. One month, and if you try anything, and I mean _anything_ , I swear, I’ll make you regret it.”

“Fine.”

He extends his hand, and it hangs in the air between them for a moment that seems like it might never end.

But she takes it, if only for a moment, then drops it as if she has been burned. He sees a flash of an old, familiar fear on her face that is buried at once under layers of anger and surliness.

He smiles.

Clearly there was work to be done, but the deal was struck. A whole month!

Oh, what a change a month could bring.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Jessica/ Kilgrave dynamic is the creepiest and yet most magnetic thing I have ever witnessed. This is for everyone who wanted to see more of their strangely effective hero teamwork and unnerving little playhouse. 
> 
> Because it is Kilgrave, yes, this will get weird. And, yes, the rating will have to go up later chapters. 
> 
> Next time, Jessica gets a decision hangover, and Kilgrave burns off some energy. 
> 
> What would their hero team name be? Post suggestions in the comments?


	2. Step Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica wakes up with that special Kilgrave hangover feeling and wonders what the hell she just agreed to.

Jessica wakes up feeling like shit. Her head is splitting and her stomach is burning with acid. Ordinarily, she would say hangover, but what she’s got is worse: it’s a Kilgrave morning after special. This is not the first time she has experienced it. Nor, she suspects, will it be the last. The man is a walking stress bomb, and she knows her symptoms are psychosomatic, but it doesn’t make her head hurt less or her arms feel less heavy.

What the hell had she agreed to last night?  

She stares blearily up at the familiar ceiling, letting the mood have full swing. She had hardly slept. His face had been swimming through her mind all night, wearing that smile. The goddamn grin made her think she had been an idiot to have gone along with this bargain, that she had been dealt the worse end of it.

Trouble was, there was no good end, as far as she could see.

What do you do at the fork when all roads lead to hell? You pick a path and step the fuck up. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s the heroic thing. You don’t run away, and you can’t stand still. You make a choice and you power on through. You fix it.

But after that? You get to spend the rest of your life wondering if you made the right choice, and never knowing until it’s too late. This part doesn’t get talked about so much.

A noise drifts up from downstairs and catches Jesssica’s groggy attention. She hears heavy footsteps thudding across the wooden floor. She hears the muffled sound of strange male voices. She hears his above it all, high-pitched and strident, like a splinter in her ear. She can’t quite make out the words.

 _Damage control_ , she thinks, regretfully. _You’re up, Jones._

She scrambles out of bed blindly, her eyes screwed up against the brightness of the morning, fumbles the door open and makes her way down the stairs, following the noise.

The first floor hallway is a thoroughfare for orange-shirted, blue-overalled strangers. The front door has been thrown wide open, and they are filing in from the delivery truck she can see parked outside on the drive, laden with cardboard boxes, cables, ladders and drills.

They brush past her with meek, uniform ‘morning, ma’ams’ on their lips. Their eyes are glazed over, and they barely look up from their urgent task. So much, she thought, for giving up the Other Thing. But of course, she hadn’t really expected it.

She follows these unfortunates into the house, towards the basement, which seems to be the epicentre of the whole commotion.

He is at the bottom of the stairs, is back to her, surveying the choreographed chaos in front of him. His hands are in the pockets of his slacks, and his shoulders are relaxed, even as he gives out impatient, clipping orders.

“Higher,” he says. “Make it level with the rest. It has to be _perfect_.”

Jessica descends the stairs.

“What the hell - ?”

The basement is in the middle of a transformation. Uniformed men are rigging up the beams with bright flood lights, while others are working on the walls, covering the raw brick with panels of white drywall. But most are focussed on the far end of the room, where a bank of huge black monitors is being installed. They cover the end wall and curve slightly around the console which has two futuristic-looking seats moulded out of gleaming purple. It’s part holodeck, part home entertainment system.

“Ah, Jessie! You’re up at last.”

He turns around, and flashes her a smile that would be warm on anyone else.

“Yeah, I’m up,” she grumbles, ignoring the jibe. Kilgrave hardly sleeps at all, as far as she could remember. “You’re making enough noise to wake the whole neighbourhood. What is all this?”

“It’s a _surprise_ ,” says Kilgrave, enunciating the word with relish.

Jessica can’t help but think of a kid in a candy shop, rolling something sweet around the tip of his tongue. Except this kid is a sadist and it’s people’s actual lives that he’s chewing up and spitting out. It’s important to remember that, in those moments when he starts to seem too normal. Those moments can make the world spin unless you get on top of them.

“Funny, it looks like some sort of home theatre, man-cave bullshit.”

His nose wrinkles up with distaste.

“ _Man-cave_? Really? Sometimes I do think that you lack imagination. If you must know, this is going to be our _hero room_.”

She blinks at him, the words refusing to make sense.

“Excuse me?”

“This is surveillance,” he explains, pointing towards the wall of monitors with a grandiose gesture. “We have to know what’s going on, if we’re going to fight crime. And over here – “ he indicates a corner where two men are hanging up a glass board that would be more at home on the set of CSI. “This is strategy and brainstorming. Just think of that: you and me, plotting away into the wee hours. I thought about getting some kind of gym put in, but you don’t need physical training.”

His eyes rake slowly down her body and she feels the ground pulling away from her.

“This is ridiculous,” she says, and the aggression helps with the panic, as it always does. “Nobody actually does this outside of bad movies, you know.”

“Don’t they?”

He frowns, as if he actually had no idea, which she has trouble believing. Then she remembers that groomed a drug addict for months just to get his hands on some pervy pics. That he thinks it’s acceptable to wear a purple suit when trying to keep a low profile. Of course he would go in for this nonsense.

“No,” she says, firmly. “This is some comic book bullshit. Did you read too many Batmans as a kid or something?”

The look on his face darkens, and she realises what she just said.

“You know I didn’t.”

“Yeah, well, this is really not how it’s done,” she says, all too happy to gloss over the moment. “You don’t need any of this crap to be a hero. After all, you’ve seen what my place looks like.”

Reuben hangs in the air like an accusation, but Kilgrave doesn’t seem to notice one bit.

“What are we supposed to do, then?” he says, rather petulantly. “Just wait for the news to drop something on our laps?”

“No,” she replies. “What happened last time was like a fucking unicorn. ‘Breaking news: live hostage situation?’ It won’t happen again in a hurry, not even in this hellhole. If you want a proper lead, you need to be looking beyond the news. Besides, if it’s plastered all over the air, it’s usually too late. Not to mention too high profile. I thought you were all about staying off cameras.”

He sighs.

“Do you have one, then, Jessica Jones? A _proper lead_?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m a private eye.”

She turns around and heads back up the stairs. Her intent is to get out of the basement, to get some actual air, and a strong, strong coffee. But halfway up, she thinks again and decides not to delay the inevitable. It’s day one, and he’s clearly got energy to burn off, one way or another. He wants to hero, so, fine, they’ll hero. She’ll play him out.

“Are you coming or what?”

She doesn’t bother looking back and, sure enough, his light footsteps pad after her up the stairs.

“Where are we going?”

“Breakfast,” she says, the idea forming as she speaks. “And then I’m teaching you the first lesson of Heroism 101: hacking into police radio.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the overwhelming response to chapter one! I'm chuffed to bits, really am. It was truly beyond all expectations, and the very best motivation possible to continue this little fic. 
> 
> It's another short chapter this time, but I hope you get some joy out of it. Actually, what do people prefer? Shorter chapters out more quickly? Or longer chapters, but taking a bit more time to craft? 
> 
> Next time, we'll apply the first lesson of Heroism 101.


	3. Not the Same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica and Kilgrave split hairs on right and wrong over coffee before marking off a second notch on that superhero tally board.

 

 

 

He had always imagined her as a monolith. Jessica Jones, super hero, is a statue of bright marble, rigid and ummoving against the swirling darkness of this corrupt world. She is all white rage and righteous punishment, swift and sure and merciless. She is a powerhouse of justice in a lithe, slender, breathtakingly beautiful body that was all, all his. When they make love, it is cataclysmic.

But she is not like that anymore. He sees that now.

Instead, he finds her a tangle of contradictions, of clauses and subclauses. Right and wrong as she presents it are not two opposing ideals. She has let him behind the curtain, where good and bad are a series of double, triple, quadruple enclaves.

It’s the heroes who have a rather unfortunate reputation for being a bit simple, but he can see now that morality is not for the weak-minded. The business of right and wrong is intricate and complex.

Or an exercise in splitting hairs. It all depends on your point of view.

And she is trying so hard to impress hers upon him, treading those thin, wavering lines like a tightrope walker. She refuses to see the shortcut that seems so obvious to him, or anybody with an ounce of common sense and a grain of daring to match it.  

“That’s not the same,” she insists.

“No, it isn’t,” he agrees. “My way would be a lot easier.”

“You can’t just do whatever the hell you want.”

Her tone is reproachful, and he is sure that he heard an actual tut. She is tutting at him.

“Why not? It’s not like I’m planning to harm anyone. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“They don’t deserve it,” she says, her expression dark with hidden meaning.  

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. Deserve what? All I want is for them to do the job properly, and to tell me about it. Shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, even for the NYP-bloody-D.”

“That’s not the point,” she grinds out. “It’s not about _what_ you make them do.”

“No,” he retorts. “The _point_ is getting some lives saved.”

“Yeah, well, I’m on that.”

She is still fussing with the police scanner.  

When he had heard that they were going to hack into police radio, he had imagined a bulky handheld with its insides severely reconfigured by an unsavoury, unwashed type who lives out of a van with blacked out windows. Instead, Jessica is fiddling around on her phone, which lies between them on the table, set to speaker.

There is an app for tapping into police radio. It is enough to make one despair of this world, it really is.

 “Suit yourself.”

He lets her get on with it and tries to see this frustrating delay, this little mundanity, as all part of the game. If he had known it would be this dull, he might have stayed at home. At least at home there was excitement to be had. The workmen had been told to get on without him, but it was not the same as actually being there, saying the words and watching his vision come to life.

At least his latte is passable, given the setting. Hers is an Irish. She seems to have needed it. The scowl is not carved as deeply into her wide brow as it has been earlier in the morning, and her fingers are nimble enough. He has been looking for tremors in those long, white fingers. He remembers that ugly fiasco over the wine. There is a shadow of a stain on the wall that the servants just cannot remove no matter how long they scrub. Not a drop of alcohol has been served to her since.

Fortunately, he does not have to wait much longer for something to happen.

“Shut up – “ she hushes him needlessly.

Her face is all drawn angles, all focus and thought. Jessica Jones, private eye, indeed.

“Ten-fifty-two,” she says, translating the scrambled garble for his benefit. “That’s a dispute. A fight, basically. That’s probably none of our business. Are you going to take notes, or something? This is basic stuff, and I’m not going to explain it again.”

“Why would I need to remember this? I’ve got you. Figuratively speaking only, of course.”

He raises his hands in that universal gesture of surrender, to wave off her concerns, but this does not stop her from giving him a dirty look from beneath lowered lids. She jabs at the screen of her phone.

“This is interesting : ten-thirty on the pawn shop at second and tenth. That’s a live robbery. I know the place. It has the absolute worst security. Still pretty ballsy for the middle of the day, though.”

“Hmmm…”

He was rather hoping for something a bit more than petty theft. Something challenging. Something with a glorious payout, the same heady rush as last time, but bigger and better and sweeter.

“What? Armed robbery not good enough for you?”

“Any sergeant fresh from the academy could deal with that,” he says. “Where are all the good cases? Where is the drama? Where are the high stakes?”

After all the work that he did to get them off to a flying start this morning, here they are, waiting on tenderhooks for audio scraps. All it would take is a word, and the station would be his again. They would have the pick of the city’s crop of festering ails. He thinks momentarily of London, wishing for that New York’s closed circuit security cameras were half as advanced. Lives could be saved, gratitudes earned. Instead, here they are, working through this little exercise in aiming low.  

Yet, she insists on doing things her way. And she insists on calling it the right way, the way of least moral resistance.  

She had already taught him just how aggravating it could be when other people refuse to do what you want. But it is so much worse when they refuse to do what is best for them. How does anyone stand it, not being able to fix what is so obviously broken?

“Yeah, well, that’s real life for you,” she continues. He sees defensiveness in the tensing of the shoulders. “Superhero rescue moments don’t just grow on trees, you know. Most of the time, the world is full of decent people just going about their decent everyday business. Not everyone is you.”

“If only there were more me running around. I’ve been waiting for– “ he checks his watch  “ - almost an hour now for something interesting. God, is it always this slow and _boring_?”

 “I can’t just magic a crime out of nowhere, asshole,” she snaps at him. “Unless you want the ten thirty – three at Central Station. That’s a bomb scare, by the way. Can you talk a bomb out of exploding? If so, be my guest.”

He has to concur that, no, he probably could not. Not in a literal way.

“Is this really what you do all day?” he asks.

He had never taken her for the type to listen patiently for hours on end. It is a desperately sad image.

“Not usually,” she replies, still snappish. “Mostly, I’m at home, waiting for a case to ring in so can I make back payments on rent and have a little leftover for the whiskey I need to forget everything you did to me. This is a special weekend treat.”

 “So you listen out for an altercation and, what, _spring into action_? Jessica Jones to the rescue? All ferocity and flailing fists? How do you even get there in time? I assume you have to arrive before the police do.”

“You’re overestimating New York’s finest. And I’m good at shortcuts. Really good. But, no, normally I don’t go after the quick jobs unless they really are on my doorstep. I pick up trails that are going cold. I find people who have gone underground. I’m good at that. Really good.”

She flashes him a pointed, triumphant look because, bless her, she thinks she was the one that found him.

“I bet you are,” he says. “And then you bring them to justice? Jessica Jones: judge, jury and executioner, all in one? ”

He can imagine her emerging out of shadowy alleyways, cornering frightened examples of society’s human detritus, dealing out punishment. He remembers the crunch of her knuckles against a man’s jaw on a dark night, with that wild, glorious look on her face.

 “What? No, you sick prick. I tie them up and drop them at the nearest station. I haven’t done that in a while. Months, actually.”

She frowns deeply, as if suddenly remembering something. Then she shakes her head, and the moment dissolves.

“This one will do,” she says, as the radio spits out more garbled, truncated words. “Suspected kidnapping. Should be plenty _high stakes_. Blue Prius heading out west, 44 th. Let’s go.”

Half command, half challenge. With those words, they spring into action.

She does know all the best shortcuts. They dive in and out of alleys, their path seeming erratic and random to him, taking sudden turns as her speaker phone blares out updates on the offender’s location. They emerge onto the street just in time to see the blue car speeding off to the west, driving in a reckless way that spoke loudly of guilt.

They are too far away and speeding ever further into the distance and it seems to him impossible. But Jessica is not to be daunted.

“Hold this – “

She throws her phone at him, barely missing his head, and runs ahead in the way that only she can. Her long, strong legs propel her forward in impossible leaps that last for several seconds. She covers a city block in three bounds. The pedestrians she outstrips stare gaping after her, and he pants out indiscriminate commands for them to mind their own bloody business as he tries – and fails – to catch her up.

“Jessica – “ he calls after her as loudly as he can. “Jessica, wait. Come back! _Jessica_!”

He wants to warn her about the guns that the criminals no doubt have in their possession. He wants to tell her to wait for him. But she is getting out of earshot and never once looks back. He is powerless to stop her, and it makes him sick to the stomach.

He has no choice but to watch her leap into the air, higher than any human should be able to, and hear her land several blocks away with the sickening crunch of metal and the squeal of tires.  

By the time he catches up to them, the car in question has slammed to a stop. Its front is caved in, and Jessica is pulling a man out of the broken windshield by the collar. The accomplice in the backseat pulls the gun away from the child’s throat and turns it towards her. Time is as slow as syrup.

“STOP!” he calls out.

The gun freezes in place. The driver stops his futile flailing. Even the child has stopped bawling. All around them, cars screech to a stop and people turn to statues.

Jessica Jones does not stop. She continues to pull the driver out, dragging his body along the glass and throwing it onto the ground like the sack of filth that it is.

He hurries over before even more damage can be done.

“Do you have a death wish?”

The rage comes over him suddenly, flashing hot and cold in his veins He shakes with it, hears it in his own strangled, uneven voice.

“What were you thinking? Answer me!”

Jessica only shrugs in reply.

“I always wanted to try that,” she says, without even a hint of an apology. There is even pride in her voice.

“Why did you do that? You could have been hurt,” he says, unable to keep the reproach out of his voice. “You could have been _killed_.”

“And you care because, what? You love me, right?”

She snorts, the derision etched clearly on her mocking face. This is all a game to her, and she has no idea of the seriousness of what almost happened. Of what he almost lost.

“That’s not funny,” he says. “Thoughtlessly endangering your own life is not part of our agreement. This is not what I meant. This is not what I _wanted_. If you die - if you leave me - I don’t know what I’ll do.”

He lets the silence hang and hang, and watches her reactions wrestling with one another. She is not stupid. She perceives the threat for what it is.

“Lucky for you, I didn’t,” she says, at last.

“You were reckless.”

“And you were slow.”

It takes him less than a moment to decide what to do. The words are almost reflex.

“You, kid, get out of the car. Come here. And for god’s sake, stop snivelling.”

The child clambers out of the backseat and pads dutifully over to him. Jessica’s eyes are saucers.

“I thought we were a team. Is this how you always treat your partners? Just run off on your own? What am I saying? Of course that’s what you do. You’re used to being all alone, aren’t you, Jessica? Doing everything by yourself, afraid to ask anyone for help.”

He watches her closely, but evidently her poker face is better than his.

“Let him go, Kilgrave,” she says tightly.

“You don’t have to be alone anymore, Jessica,” he continues. “I’m here now. And I’ll never leave you. I was really hoping you would have twigged by now.”

She does not soften, not even the slightest bit. He reminds himself that he wouldn’t like her if she were easy. That he must persevere with this. That he must try harder.

He bends down so that his face is level with that of the pale, shivering child. He brushes its wispy blonde hair out of its snotty face.

“Don’t be afraid,” he says, in his most tender voice. The fear drains away at once, replaced with that blank, careless contentment that he has come to know well. “You’ll forget what happened to you today. It was all a bad dream. You’ll be alright.”

“I’ll be alright,” the child echoes.

He pats it on the top of the head, catching Jessica’s eye. Her expression is one of utmost incredulity and confusion.

“See, Jessie? I mean it. I want to be good. I’m trying. All I’m asking is for some effort on your part.”

 “Fine,” she says, hurriedly. “I’m sorry for being reckless. Just let him go.”

The noise of police sirens wafts in on the air.

“We need to get out of here,” she adds, her eyes darting in panic at the frozen chaos around them.

The sound of sirens is drawing perilously close.

Sighing, he sets about the task. There is no pleasure to be had in any of it, after she has managed to ruin this whole event. The child stays in the car until the officers arrive. The two balaclava’d idiots will not move until they are in cuffs. They will admit to everything they did. Everybody else will go about their business. Call it all a flash mob. Nobody will remember that the two of them were ever here.

Normalcy resumes itself with frightening speed. They make their way off the street and melt easily into the slowly diffusing crowd just as the first police car clears the corner.

In the press of bodies all keen to follow his orders and leave the scene of the crime, he almost trips over the sweeping tip of a white cane.

“Watch where you’re going,” he snaps automatically.  

The blind man gapes at him, his mouth falling open like a fish, dark lenses roving unseeingly over both himself and Jessica.

“He’s _blind,_ ” says the outraged friend beside him.

“It was a figure of speech. Go fu –“

“Don’t!” says Jessica. Her eyes are wide, and she is actually tugging at his sleeve.

He lets the words die on his lips.

“Get out our way. And cut your hair, it’s disgusting.”

He leaves them rushing away, whispering heatedly together.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Jessica hisses.

“Yes, I did. Did you see the state of it?”

“You’re mad with me. There’s no need to take it out on anyone else.”

He was not going to deny it. Unlike some, he was big enough to admit his feelings.

“You hurt my feelings, Jessie. After all I have done, you just left me on the roadside. Not for the first time, either. I hope this is not going to become a habit. You know how I feel about your habits.”

“There wasn’t much you could have done, unless you can command yourself to run faster.”

The worst part about all this is that she is right, in a manner of speaking. It was not a job for him. His powers are too limited to help in a situation like this. It is beyond aggravating.

“Still, I was expecting rather more out of today’s lesson in heroism than yet another live demonstration of reckless martyrdom. Really, what was I supposed to get from that ridiculous display?”

The disappointment tastes heavy and bitter on his tongue. The world is full of disappointments, but he had never associated them with her. Perhaps only once before.  

“Maybe this was a bad idea after all,” he says. “My skills are clearly too subtle for your brand of heroism. Shame, really. For a moment, I really thought... well, know thyself, I suppose. Clearly we’re not the sort of couple that can work together. It’s disappointing, Jessica. It really is.”

Her response to his words is rather fascinating. Relief wars with disappointment and anger and fear, and underneath that he sees the turning of cogs as the ramifications make themselves known. She is thinking how it would be to let him to his own devices. She is living the fantasy of being free of him. She is playing out the real consequences of leaving him. She is wondering what that would mean for thousands of innocents. What would Jessica do?

When she opens her mouth at last, she catches him entirely by surprise.

“You fucking coward.”

“ _What_?”

She has called him many things, but never that. Nobody ever has. They have cut out their own tongues for less.

“You’re giving up after one day? Just because it wasn’t as much fun as you hoped? You’re a selfish, gutless prick, Kilgrave.”

“ _I’m_ selfish? I was left literally holding your bag while you went ahead. I know when I’m not wanted, Jessica.”

“Being a hero is not about looking good. It’s not about flexing your superpowered muscle.”

“Really? Could have fooled me with your whole – “ he waves his hands at her schtick.

“It’s about helping people. Big or small, every – “

And his patience, already creaking with strain, suddenly snaps. Words tumble out of his mouth one after another and he is quite unable to stop them.

“Oh please, do spare me the whole ‘every bit of good counts’ thing. A bank robbery is not the same as a kidnapping, which is not the same as three people being shot in the head. We shouldn’t be wasting our time with trivia like this. It’s an injustice, not only to ourselves, but to the world. We could be doing actual good. Saving lives on a large scale. Doing the things that no one else can accomplish. Doing things that no other _heroes_ can do. With our powers combined, we could be unstoppable if we focussed on something bigger than punch-ups.”

He sees the rage boiling up in her, the same rage that is his, and it is building by the second. Her eyes are wide with it, and her plump lips begin to spasm with the storm of words that are vying for position to fly out at him, barb-first. Her fists ball by her sides, knuckles white, and he wonders if she’ll strike him.

But they are surrounded by innocents, and she does not.

“You want a job that’ll prove your mettle?” She forces the words out from between teeth clenched so tight that he thought they might shatter. “Fine, I got one that’s just perfect for you. No one else in the whole world can do it. It’s you or nothing.”

“That’s all I wanted,” he begins to say, but she is not done yet.

With a smile that is half mockery and half challenge, she speaks two words:

_"Hope Schlottmann"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, thank you all so much for your astounding support! Getting comments and kudos and bookmarks and subs is better than three red pills. I shall endeavour to continue writing words that give you the right feels.
> 
> Sorry for the delay for those of you waiting. This chapter was rather challenging due to having a lot going on. 
> 
> Kilgrave and spontaneous, street-level crime-fighting are not a match made in heaven, sadly. Not unless he can solve some of those range issues quick smart. Or our heroes adapt their strategy. 
> 
> The eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted a couple of cameos in among the crowd there. Heck, who am I kidding? It was a subtle as a Jessica punch to the face. 
> 
> The next chapter will be called The Hope Spot, because I have not forgotten her.


	4. That Hope Spot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica wrestles with the aftermath of her own power play and finds out that sometimes winning is not always winning, not where Kilgrave is concerned. What she needs is a proper plan, and inspiration comes from the most unlikely source.

“ _Well?_ I’m waiting.”

She has seen too much of his napalm temper to feel as brave as her words. She knows the blaze of  immediate cruelty that would follow. It’s merciless and devastating. She knows what little it takes to set it off. A hair out of place, a toe out of line, one wrong word said in just the wrong tone could do it.

And she knows what she has just done. It would count as a power play, if only she knew what the hell she was saying before she’d finished saying it. Look where giving a damn gets you, Jones: staring at a psychopath, waiting with baited breath for the spark.  

She reads lives upon lives in his eyes, but he doesn’t say a word. The thin lips stay pressed together, and the horrible silence draws on.

When she speaks at last, she’s prepared for anything but pity.  

“Oh, Jessica,” he says, shaking his head gently from side to side.

His eyes are as soft as his voice, but she knows his anger too well and sees it lurking there, as clear as day for all the bullshit on top.  His nostrils are flaring slightly. The veins on his neck are thick and purple over the tight white collar. On the right corner of his mouth, there’s a speck of foamy spit.

“You have to let this go. All this guilt - it’s not doing anyone any good. Granted, what happened to poor, sweet, innocent Hope was unpleasant, but you have to stop beating yourself up about it.”

“That was not my fault,” she says, automatically.

“Keep telling yourself that,” he says, and I’m sure you’ll start believing it.”

She has him by his lapels up with his back against the closest wall in the blink of an eye. Because once you’ve broken the seal on a bottle of fuck-up, where else have you got to go but to the bottom?  

To her surprise, no one stops her. No faceless security guard emerges out of the crowd to point a gun at her head. No innocents step forward to present themselves as collateral. A couple of people slow down in order to give dirty looks to the waif attacking a man in broad daylight, but this is the wrong side of town, and they turn their eyes away and walk on past.  

It’s just her and Kilgrave alone at the mouth of the alley.

She has her hands at his throat, and he is the one smiling.   

“God, you really do care about her.”

It’s a joke. The whole world really is just his toybox. Her grip tightens, and the fabric begins to strain beneath her fingers. The veins on his neck begin to pulse.  It would be easy -

 “Jessica, you’re ruining my tie.”

The playfulness is paper-thin, and the warning underneath it is clear.

“I could kill you right here,” she says in answer to the unspoken.

“No, you couldn’t,” he says, rather quickly, smugness written all over his face. He likes nothing more than rubbing his power into people’s faces.

“Command me to let you go, then.”

“No, I don’t think I will. I mean what I said – I want you free. You can do what you want. Within reason.”

“I want to kill you.”

She didn’t get the reaction she was hoping for. He merely rolls his eyes.

“That’s hardly reasonable,” he says.

“I could still give it a good shot,” she says.

She means it. She thinks of squeezing the life out of him one gasping breath at a time, and getting a good portion of the way there before the strangled words escape his purple lips. And after that? In this shitty world, this kind of grand, sweeping justice isn’t worth what comes after, no matter how much fun it would be.

“You could, but that’s hardly going to help poor innocent Hope Shlottman. Come on, Jessica. Enough of this. Unless there’s another reason you have me backed up against a wall. Did beating up those worthless specimens set the juices flowing? I thought I detected a certain afterglow. Really, you could have just asked.”

His eyes rove hungrily across her face, and she is suddenly and terribly aware of how close they are. Their faces are inches apart. She can smell the coffee on his breath and feel the places where his body touches hers, even through the layers of their clothes.  

Her stomach drops somewhere deep beneath her feet, and she steps back at once, her skin suddenly cold and crawling.

“You could have given me a softer landing,” he grumbles, adjusting his ruined collar and smoothing the back of his hair where the wall had roughed him up.

Jessica walks on as fast as she can, heading deep into the alley and going nowhere in particular. She needs to put distance between them, and to think about what the hell she just did. He didn’t need to compel her to do anything, and he still had all the power. She needs air. She needs a drink. She does not need him following her, his oxfords clipping out a fast, echoing step just at her heels.   

“Jessica! Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“ _Our_ home, I hope. I might not be responsible for my actions, otherwise.”

That’s right. God forbid that she starts to think, even for a second, that her life is her own. She spins around to face him, since escape is no option.

“You never are, are you? Because they all do it to themselves, don’t they? They voluntarily hand their lives over to you. Empty their bank accounts. Cut off their own ears. Kill their own parents.”

“That was…” he pauses, frowning lightly, searching in his reptilian brain for just the right euphemism. “ _Ugly_. I made a mistake. I was all alone after you left me. I got desperate for some human contact, that’s all. Most of us do need that in our lives.”

He shoots a pointed look carefully in her direction. She sends it right back.  

“Most of us don’t get it by force.”

“I know,” he says, eyes wide, shoulders shrugging. “That’s all in the past. I told, you, I’m a changed man. You changed me, Jessica Jones. How many times do I have to say that before you believe me? I’m starting to get sick of the sound of my own voice.”

“You’re not the only one.”

He sighs with mock defeat.

“What do you want from me, Jessica?”

It was surely obvious to any normal human being. But of course, she’s not dealing with one of those.  

“I want you to make it right,” she says.

It’s almost like lecturing a kid, but where the mistakes are just a little worse than breaking someone else’s toy. Out of nowhere, she suddenly thinks of her brother, and shudders. There could be no worse comparison.

“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t exactly travel back in time and undo what I did.”

That was true enough. If the past could be rewritten, she would go back and make sure she finished the job right the first time. Or further, to a world where she didn’t even know he existed. Or before that, to when he was just a little boy called Kevin.

But woulda and shoulda count for less than nothing.

“You can fix it now,” she says. “Get Hope released. Clear her name.”

 He stares at her for a moment, eyes narrowed.

“How?”

“Turn yourself in. Confess – “

She doesn’t get a chance to finish before he starts laughing.

“There’s an awful lot I’ll do for love, but I really can’t do that.”

She feels suddenly very stupid. _He’s good deep down. I can change him._ Isn’t that the victim’s mantra?  He’s not, and she can’t. She never should have tried this Kilgrave redemption bullshit.

“Forget it,” she says, trying to keep the rattle and shake out of her voice. “The deal’s off. Clearly, heroism is not for you. I was obviously insane when I agreed.”

“Oh, please!” he says, as if she is the one being ridiculous. “It’s got to be all or nothing with you, doesn’t it? I just meant there are other, better ways than the one you’re thinking.”

“No there aren’t. There are just ways that are better for you.”

“Better for _everyone_. Let’s play it out, shall we? Let’s suppose I turn myself in. I assume that what the ideal scenario looks like in your mind? I turn myself in. I demonstrate my powers to the incredulous body of the law. What would even constitute proof? But let’s suppose that they all buy it, somehow, and do not end up sending both you and I to the nearest loony bin. Somehow, they believe it. It then turns into the news of the decade – “

“Don’t flatter yourself – “

He goes on, unheeding.

“- And what happens then?”

“You get some quality time in the sin bin, _Kevin_.”

Annoyance rolls across his face.  

“And I suppose in your mind that’s recompense for all the terrible, evil things that I’ve done.”

“It’s not a bad start.”

But it’s not enough, either. One lifetime sitting in max goes nowhere near what he deserves. Neither does death. She hasn’t yet worked out what would be enough, if anything.

“And after that? Suddenly, the courts are full of people claiming that I made them do all manner of terrible things to each other. Revisionism on a grand scale for years and years, possibly decades. Not just here in America. All across Europe, the UK, Australia, a good portion of Africa. I’m a frequent flyer. I’ve been to over fifty countries, and very single one of them would be in turmoil trying to puzzle out the truth in the sudden deluge of claims and counter claims. There would be worldwide chaos.”

“I’ll take the risk.  The truth will win out eventually.”

“Would you risk of a dozen more of me by the end of the year? Because that will be happen. As soon as they know I exist, the government will be working flat out to mass produce mini-me’s. In fact, make that governments, plural. There is going to be an arms race. The first country to crack my magic formula wins. And since you will have revealed my particular weakness, I can’t promise that I’ll be able to fight the foreign agents off. I don’t exactly fancy spending my foreseeable future being dissected in a secret lab in China. And then there are the terrorists. On the plus side though, it’s good news for superheroes, because you lot are going to suddenly get a lot more work.”

“And what’s the alternative? You get to do whatever the hell you want? Hope spends her life in prison for your crimes?”

“It isn’t zero-sum game. The world is a place of infinite possibility, Jessica Jones. A word here and then, and Miss Shlottman will be an innocent woman. Well, there would be a paper trail, but officially, in black and white, she won’t have anything to do with her parents’ untimely demise. No one would know.”

“ _She_ would know.”

“I can’t erase memories. If I could, I would.”

She considers this for a long moment. Her mind is noisy with competing voices and she can barely think. She tries to summon up the one that she can always count on. What would Trish do in this circumstance?

“You’ll never see her again. You’ll let her live her life in peace.”

 “Why would I need a pale imitation, when I’ve got the real thing right here?”

She wonders if, in his deranged mind, it was supposed to be a compliment.

“And If I say none of this is enough?”

He shrugs.

“If you’re happy to let her take two life sentences, fine. It makes no difference to me.”

This, she could believe.

The moment is drawing out, the stretch of silence growing deafening. She knows just how wrong it is to even consider it, but once again, there seems to be no right choice. For all the talk of a win-win situation, Justice and Hope Shlottman’s life are on opposite sides of the scales. She’s circling the drain with nothing to pull her out, spiralling towards the inevitable.

“Jessica?”

“Alright.”

She hears her own voice like it’s coming out from the other end of long pipe. And no sooner are the words out, she feels the creep of regret crawling up her spine, telling her that, once again, she has managed to grab the worse end of a deal that was all worse ends.

And he smiles that goddamn smile that only means trouble.

“And what do I get in return?”

“What?”

“If I get Little Miss Varsity back on her feet, what do I get from you?”

“Nothing. You’ll not get a punch to the teeth.”

He doesn’t comment.

“I want you to promise that you’ll take this seriously. I don’t want you needlessly endangering your life. I don’t want you to rushing into things without my consent. I don’t ever want to be left behind again.”

It takes her a moment to understand what he is asking for. The kidnapping might as well have been a lifetime ago for her, but evidently he was still stuck on her breaking his unspoken rules.

“Fine,” she says, with a great effort, as her jaw seems to have suddenly locked up.  “All of that.”

“You made the right choice. You’ll see.”

They have reached the end of the alley. It opens onto a leafy, hipster-filled street in the gentrified quarter of Hell’s Kitchen.

Two men with glitter in their beards brush past them.

“Did you see the car crash – “

“I heard it was some kind of stunt. Like a flash mob thing, gone wrong – “

Kilgrave looks around them, squinting at the road signs. He sends a text, and the car with blacked out windows that he thinks is discreet pulls up an unnaturally short moment later.

He opens the door on her side invitingly.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“Home,” he says. “I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely knackered. Must be all the heroism. I need lunch and a change of clothes.”

He wipes the invisible dirt from his creased suit.

“What about Hope?”

“Oh, Miss Shlottman can wait a few more hours, or days. Let’s say…until the end of the month.”

And she would have punched the smugness and cruelty off his face, if only it was her own life on the line.

It dawns on her on the long drive back to the suburbs that her power play had only managed to play herself out of it. The truth, as always, hurts like hell.

The house is silent when they get back, the workmen having evidently finished.

“I’m making a call,” she says, at once.

“Fine,” he replies.

She wonders if he even heard her, as he clearly has other things on his mind. He heads straight for the basement, snapping orders at Alva and Laurent that he wants lunch ready in half an hour and cake to follow.

Relieved not to be at the centre of attention, she heads up to the room that is nominally hers. With her back braced against the door, she dials for Trish. Even the act of tapping her name on the screen is like a deep breath of fresh air.  

Trish picks up almost at once, and her voice is urgent and low.

“Jesus, Jessica. I’ve been waiting and waiting.”

“I’ve been a little busy today.”

“I know,” hisses Trish. “Everyone knows.”

“What?”

A sick, sinking feeling grows in hers stomach.

“You’re all over the internet. Jumping on a car in broad daylight? Seriously?”

“I had to something. Kilgrave was getting to me,” she admits.

“How is it?” asks Trish. It’s a loaded question.

“How do you think? He hasn’t done anything to me,” she adds, hearing concern in the silence. “I made a deal today. Another one, I mean. He’ll get Hope out if I _behave_ for the rest of the month.”

And as the words came out, she realises just how fucking pathetic the whole thing must sound.  

“You need to get on top of him,” says Trish.

Jessica can’t help but snort at that.

“I’m sure he’d love that – “

“This is serious. He’s wearing you down and it’s only the firstday. He’s going to ask for more. Trust me, I know how this goes.”

“So do I. He hasn’t given me a single command, though.”

“There are other ways to control.”

She wished this wasn’t so true.

“Did I do the right thing with Hope?” she asks, her voice coming out tight. “Cause it doesn’t feel like a win from over here.”

Trish pauses for a thoughtful moment.

“Yes,” she says, her voice slow and rather cautious. “That’s got to be a win for us. If he pulls through, she’s out. If he doesn’t, well, we’re back to where we were in the first place. “

“I’ll need a plan. A proper one.”

The truth of those words hits her as she voices them. So far, she’s been cruising along, sipping that Kilgrave Koolaid. She has forgotten why she played along in the first place. Trish is absolutely right. She needs to get on top of this.

“Until you have one, you might want to think about getting a disguise.”

“I am not becoming Jewel again,” says Jessica, remembering that godawful leotard.

“Go online, and see if you change your mind.”

“How bad – “

From downstairs, Jessica hears her name being called in his grating, high-pitched voice.

“Shit. I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Jessica hangs up reluctantly and treads her way downstairs, her feet feeling like lead.  

She checks the Bugle.com for this online presence she’s apparently gotten in the last few hours. She doesn’t have to look far. It’s right there, on the home page, fourth story down. _‘Does Hell’s Kitchen Have A New Hero?’_ There’s a video attached. She plays it. It’s a ten second loop of a dark-haired girl dropping out of the sky, landing on the hood of a car with a crash, and holding on for dear life as the vehicle careers wildly, disappearing around the corner.

She stares for a long moment at the grainy, zoomed out video of herself, captured by some stranger in just the right place and the right time, whose phone obviously had a better memory than he had.

The video has apparently gone viral. Thousands of nerds at keyboards are trying to work out who she is, _what_ she is. She remembers Laser-Eyes-Man, and that Bitch-Who-Can’t-Aim-For-Shit. She remembers that whole debacle over the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Trish might be right about being more careful: not all heroes get the hero’s welcome, these days.

She thinks about the way Kilgrave’s collar strained under her tightening grip, and the way he smiled knowing there was nothing she was truly willing to do to him, with other people’s lives on the line.

What did Trish say the last time?

_It can’t be all down to you._

And it occurs to her in a flash of unexpected, unaccustomed brilliance.

Trish is right, as usual.

And for once it’s her fucking turn to smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all once again for your incredible support and feedback! I continue to be astounded on a daily basis at the amount of interest in this story.
> 
> Sorry for the delay, those of you who were waiting. A busy week at work combined with moving house and a tricky, tricky chapter do not quick updates make. 
> 
> I don’t like the glitterbeard trend, in case you can't tell. And I think Jessica feels the same. Can’t even imagine what Kilgrave’s face was like. He should make them eat it.   
> Edit: For those of you fortunate enough not to have seen this trend before, thank me later -   
> http://i.imgur.com/QSFUeFz.jpg
> 
> Next time, we’re doing disguises and hero names, because if you're going viral, you might as well look the part. If you've got suggestions, I'd love to hear them!


	5. Third Unicorn Lucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kilgrave and Jessica put their spat behind them by tacitly agreeing never to talk about it and team up for their third case which takes them into the underbelly of organised crime.

Two out of two.

As far as a running average goes, there’s nothing to complain about. Not that he is expecting to keep it up. He might not be familiar with the secret ways of heroism, but he is not a complete idiot. Two unicorns, one after the other. He can’t expect a third.  

It’s a good thing, too. They need to slow down.  Jessica is already very nearly famous. It’s impossible to see her face in the pixelated, shaky mess shot on that potato for a phone, but it would surely only be a matter of time before someone with a decent camera and steady hands is standing in just the right place at just the right time. He has been through the now famous clip a dozen times, blurry frame by blurry frame. He is somewhere just out of view, no doubt, tearing down the street as fast as he can, shoes chafing and breath already hard and rough, making not an inch of gain as Jessica draws further and further ahead.

He might have been left behind on the pavement, but he has not been left out of the story entirely. Details are beginning to waft among the digital diarrhoea that is social media. He would have thought that a man in a suit is nothing compared to the spectacle of a woman actually falling out of the sky then clinging onto the roof of a speeding car like a gecko, no matter how snappily dressed he was. But people are almost as surprising as they are irritating, and there he is.

_And then I just stopped what I was doing, like I was frozen in place. It was like someone pulled my plug out. I just couldn’t move. I didn’t even want to move._

_I slammed the brakes on so hard I was spinning out. Almost totalled the car. My head was buzzing. Everything was sort of muffled. Like I couldn’t hear anything properly or see anything. Except for this one voice._

_I remember her, sure I do. I won’t forget that in a hurry. But I remember this other guy, too. He was wearing this pimp-ass purple suit. And when he started talking, it was like his voice was the only one in the world._

Hashtag FallingGirl. Hashtag PurpleMan.

Was it so much to ask that the public have a little imagination at least?

It wouldn’t do. Fame is more hassle than it was worth. What he had told Jessica was the truth. It would be a disaster if they – the ever ominous _they_ – found out about him. It would be a different matter if he were stronger, but he’s not deluded enough to imagine that he can bend the whole world to his will.

As a boy, shortly after those piss-poor excuses of human beings had left him all alone, he had fantasised about doing just that. He imagined a world full of smiling faces. They would be legion, his army of devotees. They would be infinitely loyal and adoring. Neither time nor distance would wane his influence. The whole world would be perfectly content, and content to love him. Everywhere he went, he would have his people.

Universal adoration was a heady elixir, but it was only a fantasy in the end. He can’t even manage to control a whole city block, it seems.

It’s better for all concerned if he keeps to the whispers and the shadows. For now. The internet is a hydra and he knows better than to try his hand damage control by increments. He couldn’t stop them talking, but he could at least try and change the conversation. If you don’t want them to see the card switch, give them something else to look at. Something lovely and skimpy, usually.

Jessica Jones is justice on long, shapely supermodel legs. Or could be, with the right packaging. Who could give a single toss for the bloke standing next to her?

Jessica Jones and her supermodel legs are presently perched on the long glass-topped table in the centre of the room.

It is supposed to be for charting the geography of their cases. A large, glossy map of New York city had been laid out on it. However, her first action upon entering ‘the man cave’ was to sweep that off into a crumpled heap on the ground and perch her bottom there instead. A minor act of destruction just in case he got the wrong end of the stick about who she is and how she’s feeling.

Jessica is many things, but evidently not a graceful loser.

But at least she is in the same room and more or less speaking to him. He had expected a silent protest or perhaps a return to her liquid meals after how yesterday. The morning had held such promise, but it had all gone a little downhill at the end.

In a way, he’s equally culpable. He should never have responded to her obvious baiting. But he’s only human after all, and she knows how to press buttons he didn’t even know existed. Naturally he had been worried that the pointless quarrel might have undone their progress, but all his fears were unfounded. It was like their little spat had never happened. This tacit agreement never to talk about it again is better than the alternative, he supposes. He likes her angry, but there’s only so much a man can take. The parted lips and the heaving chest had stayed with him all through the night. So had the marks on his neck, unfortunately, although he made sure to hide them beneath a high collar.

It was the first time she had touched him since they parted, and it was not quite the kind of caress he had been hoping for. Is he a complete fool for wanting just a little gentleness?

But nothing about her is gentle. Not the way she sits, shoulders taut as a bowstring. Not the way she scowls, brows knitted so tight and low on her face that her eyes are no more than dark shadows. Not the way she rips at the thick sheaf of papers balanced precariously on one knee. She rifles through them like a hurricane, plucking out the odd page for a closer look and a sneer before tossing it to the ground to join the uprooted city map. Some of them warrant a snide comment before they fall.

“Impractical. Stripper. Batshit.”

She was growing quite a pile of _no’s_ at her feet. There is no _yes_ pile.  

Dozens of man hours from the very best New York City had to offer had gone into that growing pile of rejections, not to mention the considerable coordination effort on his part to get it put together. His favourite designers are all here. He had handpicked them for their uncompromising lines, their love of colour and texture, their unparalleled attention to detail. There is work there that borders on textile alchemy. And here they are, dropping to the ground like falling leaves after nothing more than a cursory, snarky glance.  

Jessica never had any appreciation of fine tailoring, even though her body and colouring was practically made for couture. He remembers how she had been before he gathered her up in that dark alley. Ghastly overgrown hair. Clothes off a chain store rack that had been cut for some mediocre hypothetical. And, of course, the boots.

She might have been invisible underneath all that if he did not have the most fantastic eye for beautiful things. When they were together, he made sure that she was always perfect, that none of her was hidden away or wasted. She gleamed on his arm, perfectly polished and set. She drew gazes anywhere she went. Once, a man plucked out his own eyes so that she would be the last thing he saw. She had shed that jagged, snarky, over-compensating exterior along with her clothes. With him, she had been willowy and graceful, as soft and yielding as a scrap of damp satin.

Looking at her now, in her singlet and the same pair of dirty skinny jeans she had been wearing – and running and punching and sweating in - for three days straight, it’s clear that his influence did not have any lasting effect. If anything, she seems to have gotten even worse. But being a raging alcoholic can have rather a detrimental effect on sartorial elegance.

He tuts and enjoys the rise that he gets out of her at once. A scowl and a glare. It’s rather like plucking at an overtightened string. E – E sharp if you put your finger right….there.

“Decided yet?” he asks, watching as the folder in her hands grows thinner and thinner.

“No,” she snaps, letting another design flutter away.  “Have you?”

“No,” he admits.

The battered old moving box that lies open at his end of the table is decidedly less fun, though he has managed not to fling the pages all over the room. There are half a dozen battered brown paper envelopes inside, each labelled with a scrawl of black marker, all caps. Each file begins with a handful of poorly formatted type on cheap office paper, with notes added in smudgy blue ballpoint pen, explaining the woeful particulars of the case. Where appropriate, there are photographs and print outs of emails, photopied receipts and bank statements, all jumbled together in an incomprehensible paper jungle. There are ring stains over everything, brown and then black and blue where the ink has bled, and  few discoloured splashes he would rather not put a name to.

Aside from the fascinating window into the psychology of their author, the cold cases make for terribly dull reading, for the most part. In certain places, it’s just plain terrible.

There have been an awful lot of crimes that Jessica Jones has let slip right past her private eye.  

“Well, hurry the fuck up. We don’t have all day.”

“These are months old. I don’t see why it’s suddenly so urgent.”

There’s a reason why they’re called cold cases, he supposes.

 “Says the guy with the running total.”

She jerks her chin towards the board, where he has drawn two straight lines.  

“Charting progress is important. It maintains momentum. Fosters ambition. Clarifies strategy. It’s one of the twenty habits of the highly effective. You should try it. It might get you out of that ghastly little office.”

“It’s how self-important douchebags pat themselves on the back.”

“We’re two for two,” he can’t help but point out. “Even you have to admit that’s good going.”

“If you want to make it three for three, pick a goddamn case.”

He sighs and chooses the least terrible of the lot.

“I’ll have the twins.”

“Why am I not surprised,” mutters Jessica with a roll of her eyes.

“I am wounded. My interest is purely professional.”

The case was not without potential. Rescuing two young beauties from fates worse than death was not without its attractions. It was certainly more romantic than the middle-aged Polish plumber.

 “Yeah, sure.”

The snark is only skin deep. She sets the book of costumes aside at once, scattering the remaining pages across the long table. She is wearing the drawn, serious look that he has come to recognise as her detecting face. Her body is coming alive with excitement and energy, and he can practically see it vibrating just under her milk-white skin. He _can_ see it. Veins pulse blue and purple in her neck and on her wrists. Her pupils dilate just a little. The deeply drawn eyebrows begin – paradoxically – to relax into an expression of contemplation.

“That was an interesting case. I say interesting. I mean fucking shitty.”

“It did have some hallmarks of shittiness. Let me guess: abducted by a psychopath?”

He may not be a private eye, but it doesn’t take that much to see why she would find the case appealing. It seems when Jessica Jones is not photographing adulterers and finding lost cats, she indulges herself in vicariousness. All these missing persons feed to perfectly into her victimization complex. They are all Hope Shlottmans before he’d even though up Hope Shlottman. It’s about as subtle as one of her wall-cracking, heart-stopping punches.

 “No,” she says. “Worse.”

“Didn’t think there was anything worse than that.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Kilgrave. This is serious.”

He kept the retort to himself, for later, because it would be a shame to ruin the blossoming goodwill between them.

“I suspected trafficking,” continues Jessica. “The Russians run a bigtime ring out of the docks. Standard setup: shipping container with a dozen girls and a pee bucket.”

“Really? Jessica Jones versus the Russian mob?”

A vivid image paints itself into his imagination. He can see a pair of heavily tattoo’d brothers with the sort of teeth that spoke of the gulag and skin that is riddled with cryptic Cyrillic tattoos. One of them is, of course, called Vladimir They herd terrified young beauties into a filthy corrugated iron container. The women would scream, but for the tasers and bludgeons the brothers have in hand. Jessica Jones descends from above, leaping unseen from somewhere in container city. It would be brutal and quick. Boots to teeth and noses. Strong hands squeezing at throats.

He feels the sudden urge to rub at his own throat. They had been love marks not so very long ago. She did like to use her teeth. He had never specifically asked her for that. The teeth and claws were all her. She didn’t much seem to like being on the receiving end as far as he remembered, but she didn’t half like doling it out.

“No, it never got that far,” says Jessica, decimating his fantasy as surely as she did the Russians in his imagination. “I found the right place though, and the right guy. He works out of a club on fiftieth. He’s a proper pickup artist. He scouts out the likely ones:  out-of-towners, teenagers out on fake IDs, anyone looking particularly low self-esteem or stupid enough not to keep an eye on their drink. Weapon of choice is a roofie. It’s simple, but it works.”

“Why the case ever go cold? It sounds like you have it all figured out.”

Jessica tosses her head, the tension returning to her face.

“What I had wasn’t enough. I never got any direct proof. Besides, what good was it going to do? The Russians are lawyered up to their eyeballs. No one I named was going away for more than a few months. In the meantime, I find myself suddenly very popular with the lads.”

“And you just let it go at that?”

He has harder time imagining this. Surely she had at least given out a beatdown.

She shrugged.

“I’m not suicidal –“

He decides not to quibble the point.

“- you don’t just waltz in and poke the Russians. Not unless you got something up your sleeve.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve got your mighty biceps, haven’t you? I’m sure you could do a fair amount of damage to a motley crew of Baltic misfits. It could hardly be more dangerous than dropping out of the sky.”

“It’s my guns versus theirs, and theirs are submachines.  I’m not bulletproof.”

“Now there’s a thought…”

He makes a mental note.

 “There was no way I could take them alone,” say Jessica, and he fancies he hears the shadow of shame in her voice. “But seeing as you’re so keen to rack up another notch on your bedpost…”

“I’m not bulletproof either,” he points out.

Guns are by far his worst weakness. Those and headphones. His power only seems all-powerful. It’s a useful illusion that he likes to keep up, but it comes down to getting the right words out at the right time, and making sure that they’re heard. People are very good at failing him in various ways.  

“It won’t come down to a shootout,” she continues. “Not if we do it right. And the timing couldn’t be better. The Russians have gotten quiet lately. It’s probably something to do with Wilson Fisk.”

Wilson Fisk. Why is the name familiar?

 He turns it around in his head until snags on some vague memory. A beautifully tailored cube of meat with an egg for a head and a voice like a set of bellows that had sprung a wheezy leak. Something about rebuilding the city, he seems to recall. And then, later, the high profile fall from grace with a very large splatter zone. The Kingpin, that was it. It’s all very proper, old school organized crime. A finger in every pie. That would at least explain the man’s size.

“And what exactly are you hoping to do? Find the girls?” he asks.

The case is almost two months old. Even an eternal optimist would have to admit that the odds were long on finding anything more two bloated corpses at the end of this cold trail.  And Jessica is far from an optimist.

 

Jessica shakes her head.

“No, I missed the boat on that. Literally. The girls are dead. Or somewhere in the middle of East Wherethefuck, which is the same difference to us, and to their parents. But the smugglers haven’t closed up shop, exactly. It’s more like under new management. The Russians are out, and whoever’s taken over doesn’t seem nearly as slick. We could take them. If we hunt down that asshole roofie-dropping pickup artist, he can be our way in.”

“You’re surely not suggesting that I enslave the poor soul? I am shocked and appalled,” he says, naturally affronted by the very suggestion.  

It earns him a roll of her eyes.

“Funny.”

“I thought so.”

“He’ll tell us everything we need to know: locations, names, faces.”

“And then what? You said the these people are outside the law.”

“There are other avenues for justice.”

He fancies that he sees the flash of hunger in her eyes. Well, well.

“Tut tut. Are you turning naughty on me, Miss Jessica Jones?”

“Call the bad influence of the company I’ve been keeping. Some people deserve to be punished.”

“You don’t need to tell me that.”

“So you’re in?”

He deliberates, and watches the very real hope playing across her face, passing just beneath that perma-scorn.This means a lot to her. It is entirely in his power to crush that hope. Or to watch it grow and bloom.

“Of course,” he says. “I’m with you all the way. You know that, Jessica.”

“Good.”

She smiles at him, or is that a smirk? He rather thinks the former. It’s more sweet than bitter, and it is the first smile he has had from her since the accident. And it affects him more than he cares to admit. His body remembers too well, and begins to twitch in anticipation of something that once came so easily.

“You’ll need an outfit for the occasion,” he says, to fill the silence as much as anything.

He hears the roughness in the low notes of his own voice, and wonders if she hears it too. He hopes she doesn’t. Equally, he hopes she does. This just for a smile. _Think what you could have, Jessica Jones, if you would give just a little more than nothing._

“I _will not_ wear any of these,” she says, jabbing a finger at the costume designs.

“Yes, you will.”

He brings up the feed on his phone.

“You’re still trending, Falling Girl. You need a disguise. Otherwise the keyboard legion will be knocking down our door.”

“ _We’re_ still trending, Purple Man. PR is your department. It’s not my fault if you didn’t think to tell people not to film.”

And they dissolve back into that easy malcontent.

“If you hadn’t jumped- _literally_ jumped - right into something quite so public and large scale –“

“Yeah, well, I already said we won’t do that again.”

He supposed this is as close to an apology as he could hope for.

“There’s a plan this time. And this one guy shouldn’t be too far beyond your abilities.”

Jest or no, the sting is real enough. It’s true – he is dreadfully, dreadfully limited.  
Once upon a time, his gifts had given him everything he could ever want. Except for her. And now her hero thing, apparently.

“So what’s the plan, then?”

This time it is smirk. A definite, smug one, as if she’s got the world all sewn up. She enlightens him.

“You’ll need an outfit for that too,” is his first response.

His second is that it is all rather more Nancy Drew than Sherlock Holmes, and can’t possibly work. But he’ll get to see her in a dress, which is something, so he agrees to it.

They settle on Wednesday – ladies night.

She comes down the stairs wearing the worst of the dresses he obtained for her. It’s far shorter and sheerer than he would like, and the sequins are a shade of violet that scream for attention. But that is the point of it. Jessica in a dress is a rare enough treat this days that he savours it nonetheless. Certainly, she looks better in it than she had any right to be. There is next to nothing that she would not look good in. She would look particularly good in next to nothing. Baby steps.

For once, he’s glad for the long journey between Jessica’s leafy surburbia and the city, as it gives him a little more time to enjoy the sight of her, and the smell of her, almost the feel of her. There is only so much distance you can put between two bodies packed in together in the backseat of a Mercedes. She presses herself so hard against her door that it’s a wonder the thing doesn’t pop right off, another automotive sacrifice on the altar of Jessica’s strength, but even so.  

Except for that niggling detail, it is all almost perfectly familiar. There had been so many nights like this, back in the day. They went out practically every night, except for that first week when they had barely left the hotel room. Restaurants, bars, shows of all kinds – they knew how to have a good time. He loves the ritual around it almost more than the event itself. He can’t remember much of where they went or what they saw, but he remembers picking out her outfits, watching her slide into them. And later, watching her peel the garments off again, one little piece at a time, with that glorious smile that was sultry verging on filthy.  

Sitting together like this, watching the city lights draw closer, it’s almost as if nothing ever spoiled them.  

“Eyes forward, asshole.”

Almost.

“I’m only looking. No harm in that.”

“Look somewhere else, unless you want me to black those up for you. Panda eyes are all the rage, but I’m not sure they’d look good on you.”

“Empty threat, Jessica,” he says, rather wearily. “I do _Hope_ that’s just the pre-show nerves talking.”

Lips snarl, then snap shut. There’s magic in the word, and she stays beautifully silent for the rest of the journey. He wonders how he didn’t think of using little miss athlete for this before. Yes, the guilt trip had been fairly delicious, but she could be put to much better use than that. She can be stick and carrot all in one convenient blonde package.  

They wend their way into the skeevy underbelly of New York, and he can tell that it is going to be a terrible night out even before the car pulls to a stop. The address is red flag all on its own, and the music that leaks out into street from the narrow scarlet door is made up almost entirely of wordless electronic bleatings.

As they clamber out of the backseat, he can’t help but think that they are going to stick out like a pair of sore thumbs. The missing girls are – or had been – eighteen years old. The lineup behind the velvet rope are practically children. Sore, ancient thumbs.

“Follow my lead,” hisses Jessica.

Couldn’t we skip this bit?” he asks, as she leads them join the back of the queue.

It is a surprisingly long one, snaking haphazardly up the pavement. The head is being policed by a cheap black suit containing oilslicked gristle. The man with the very little job is making rather a large business of it, and the queue inches forward with all the speed of a slug. He can’t even remember the last time he had waited in a line for anything.  A word or two, and they would be on top of the VIP list, where they belong.

“No,” whispers Jessica. “We don’t want to stand out.”

“More than we already do, you mean.”

The plan was beginning to look more and more ridiculous, and it never had been that robust, not even on the planning board. For a start, there was no guarantee that their scumbag would even be here. For another thing, it is becoming painfully obvious that they do not have the right kind of honey in the trap. He has been cultivating his palate over many years. The truth is, Jessica is simply not obvious enough for most men, not even in that terrible dress. Maybe he should have released Miss Shlottman. She is much more the sort.

“Feeling like a dirty old man?”

“You’re no spring chicken yourself.”

“At least I don’t look like an actual grade A pervert. Actually, that’s not a bad cover. Might flush him out faster. You two could bond over shared interests.”

“How a _re_ we going to flush him out?”

“I got that, I told you.”

“You weren’t exactly forthcoming on the details. How – “

“Oh, look, we’re up. Remember – wait for my signal.”

The cheap suit lets Jessica through after a long, lecherous look that makes his tongue itch with all manner of fun possibilities. But true to his word, he does not say anything, except the smallest prompt when it seems obvious that the talking block of spam intends to turn him out onto the pavement.

Once inside, they do not know each other. Jessica makes a beeline for the bar, weaving through the young, gyrating bodies with ease. He finds a corner that has a good view and is reasonably quiet and merficually shielded from the worse of the dance floor lights. Then it was a matter of watching and waiting and not having the DJ eat his entire tragic set.

For what feels like days, nothing happens. Unless you count Jessica getting drunker and drunker. The plan, rather conveniently, calls for her to toss down glass after glass. The first three or four are brightly coloured, sugary concoctions that a girl wearing her dress might conceivably order. But she can’t hold the character, and soon there is amber in her glass. She takes it straight and supplied by strangers.

This, too, is part of the plan. She is working the room, one unworthy individual at a time. The smiles are all lies, and the girlish toss of the hair, revealing the long, white neck. She is a surprisingly good actress. Except for the occasional furtive look she shoots in his direction, she’s the perfect drunk late twenty-something, desperately out of place, desperate for a man for the night or the decade, with self-esteem lower than her neckline.

Eyes linger at that neckline, and hands ghost the small of her back, and lips brush by her ear as they whisper things that make her laugh that conspicuous, obvious laugh that she’s adopted. But nothing goes into her drink, and she does not give him the signal. She moves onto the next worthless shit.

Ginger boy with glasses and not a hope in hell. Mousy lanky boy. Jock - enough said. Hipster. God, another hipster. Mousy boy again – he really can’t take a hint, can he?

He could make them kill themselves. No, better, he could make them kill each other. One on one, gladiator style until a winner emerged. The dancefloor would be the ring. The tottering bimbos will line the edges as they clap and cheer. The fights will be long and gruelling. Bare handeded, fingers clawing at each other’s eyes and throats until one of them pants out their last. Or perhaps he’ll allow them what weapons they could find behind the bar. Extra points for best use of corkscrew.

But he doesn’t need to do that. It’s all an act. She always looks back at him after each encounter, finding him across the dance floor.

Still, it’s not easy to watch.

And watch.

The night draws on. Drink follows drink. The bright electronic bleating gives way to heavier, thrumming bass sounds, and the bodies on the dancefloor begin to press together like jigsaw pieces.

And still, nothing.

“Hey, want to dance?”

And it happens in an instant.

He takes his eyes off her just for a moment, just long enough to tell the annoyance at his elbow to bugger off and think long and hard about her pathetic life, but when he shifts his gaze back, she is no longer there.

She is nowhere.

His stomach knows it before the rest of him, seeming to fill with a gravity-defying feeling of panic, even as his eyes continue to dart around, searching for her in a dozen places where she is not. The music thrums on. The crowd gyrates, blocking his view of the room and all its hiding places.

“Everybody shut up!”

Mouths fall agape in perfect surprise. Others snap shut on half-uttered words.

“Stop dancing. And turn that bloody noise off.”

All silence and stillness.

“Get out of my way –“

He crosses the room in a few long strides, the crowd parting for him like the sea before Moses. He turns his attention to the barman who had been the focus of Jessica’s attention for the last hour.

“There was a girl here – dark hair, pale skin, purple dress – where is she?” 

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her go.”

“Then what is the bloody point of you? Go stick your head in an ice bucket.”

He looks around for someone else – _anyone_ else.

“Did anyone see her? She was just here. I command you to tell me where she went.”

He wonders if she made a break for it. If she decided not to go on with their experiment after all. If even the prospect of Hope’s life was not enough to keep her at his side. It would be just like her, to lead him on like this only to drop him at the first whiff of inconvenience to herself. There had been none of the usual stroppiness in the past few days as she was saving it all for the big moment. She had been planning this all along. But he will find her. He will bring her back. She is not getting away from him after all he’s done for her.

But half a dozen voices begin speaking at once in answer to his question.

“I saw her – “  
  
“She was with a guy –“

“She was drunk, he was holding her up –“

“They slipped out the back door, I think –“

He doesn’t need to listen to more. He races towards the back door, the stunned revellers blinking after him. But he has no time for them right now. He flings the door open and runs out onto the street, hoping against hope that he is not too late –

Luck is on his side. They are there, at the mouth of the alley. Jessica is being half-dragged, half-carried towards the getaway vehicle by the lanky boy who neither mousy nor simply a determined suitor after all. Strong as she is, she is already halfway to unconsciousness, by the look of her droopy neck and dragging feet, and in no fit condition to fight him off.

The kidnapper turns around at the sound of footsteps in the alley behind him.

He shouts something indiscriminate at the other one and they begin to bundle Jessica into the windowless van. One winds thick ropes around her wrists while the other bunches up a handful of filthy rags, intending to stuff it into her mouth which is hanging half-open.

“Stop!”

They turn into blank-eyed statues, like they always do. He will deal with them, but at this moment Jessica is what matters. He rushes forward, his heart pounding  loudly in its new home just below his throat. He wrests her from the first statue, being careful to cradle her lolling head. He needs someone with medical training. He wonders how far away the nearest hospital is, and how quickly they could get there with second statue driving. At least she seems to be breathing steadily. He pulls the bundle of rags out of her mouth –

“Get your fucking hands off me, asshole.”

Eyes fly open as hands fly up. He is sent staggering backwards, feet dancing madly beneath him as he fights to keep his balance.  

Jessica rises from the dirty floor of the van, rubbing her neck and wiping her mouth on her forearm. There is no hint of grogginess in her voice, and she is as nimble as a cat as she leaps out onto the ground.

“Took you long enough,” she says. “Another thirty seconds and they would have sped off into the night with me in the back. Well, maybe for a block or so. Still, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it. ”

“You were pretending,” he says.

 When two and two present themselves, the answer is four no matter how much you want it to be otherwise. 

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Why?”

He was rather proud of just how cool and level his voice sounded, even as the hammering behind his ears and beneath his throat grew hotter and louder by each passing second.

Jessica must see his rage regardless, because the savage smugness seems to slide a little to the south. 

“I had to make sure I had the right guy,” she shrugs.

“The fact that he dropped an elicit substance into your drink didn’t give you a hint?”

“For all I knew, he couldn’t have been your regular date-raping asshole. They’re surprisingly common.”

“What happened to the precious plan? You were supposed to give me the signal.”

“I did,” she says, her voice rising a little in defense. “You seemed a little busy. I just hope she won’t end up being the compulsion of the week.”

“Surely you’re not jealous, Jessica…”

Dare he hope…?

But Jessica only snorts.

“Not even a little.”

Why does that make his chest tighten?

“Are you going to help me with these two, or what? I could carry them home like a pair of prize hogs, but I was hoping for the easier way.”

He has a lot more that he could say, but there are more pressing concerns.

“In a moment,” he says, instead. “I need to take care of PR.”

Jessica frowns.

“What are you going to do to them?”

“Nothing too terrible, don’t you worry. You two idiots – stay exactly where you are.”

“Hey – Kilgrave – what are you going to do?” she calls out after him, but she was the one who set the rules this evening, and he pays her no mind as he slips back into the club.

The music is blasting again, and half the teetering children are back on the dance floor. The others are standing off the side, talking in low, troubled voices, or nursing drinks with perplexed looks on their faces.

He makes it quick and sweet. For a few minutes, the air is filled with the sound of tap-tap-tapping as all photographs and videos are erased from all gadgets. The organic memories are harder to deal with. Unfortunately, after twelve hours they are bound to start remembering, rather like the tenacious witnesses of their last venture. However, there is a way to get around that too. He commands them all to drink until they pass out, and puts the music back on his way out.

When he joins Jessica again, she is busy tying up the two Russian mobsters. Their hands are behind their backs, bound so tightly at the wrists that he can see the strain in their shoulders and the purple beginning to blossom on their strangled hands.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he says, offended on principle. He cannot abide the use of restraints unnecessarily, and all restraints are unnecessary in his presence. “Where do you want them?”

Perhaps it was the little exercise in the club, or merely the short walk, but he seems to be less angry with her than he had been only moments before. Certainly he is breathing normally again, and his heart is beating steadily, and there are no words itching to skip impotently across his tongue.

“Home,” replies Jessica. “We need to question them. And we’ll need to keep them somewhere where the Russians won’t come looking while we make plans.”

“Sounds like you need a Cave. For Men.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes: 
> 
> Sorry for the outrageous delay and thank you for being so patient. What can I say – moving was more traumatic than anticipated (still no internet) and Christmas was rather a big affair this year. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was a little bit longer - does that make up for the long delay? 
> 
> Join me next time interrogations in the Man Cave, secret cameras and the return of Matt and Foggy! I have some vacation days, so chapter 6 should be out soon. 
> 
> As always, please drop me a comment. Getting alerts on all your feedback is the highlight of my day.


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